Story Behind the Picture: Rain Boots

Life with young children makes an otherwise sane human being accept certain things as "normal" that the rest of the world views as "odd."

Like buying pants for your child specifically because they have extra pockets to hold all the treasures he's always finding.

Or walking through the aisles of the grocery store accompanied by children dressed in Halloween costumes. In April.

And, finally, going to the pool (and the beach, and the boardwalk) for an entire summer with children who insist on wearing rain boots.

One gets many strange looks from other adults when one is spotted calmly escorting their rain-boot-clad child in cloudless, 90-degree weather. To the pool. These looks are usually followed with a laugh and an understanding nod, as if to say "ah, I see you chose not to battle over the choice of footwear this morning."

Half of parenthood - motherhood, especially - is about knowing when to let go. Yes, my child's pants are laden with little toy cars, rocks, leaves, and a random plastic barrette of dubious origin. Yes, my child wore a full-body dinosaur costume to Acme last week. And yes, my child will probably once again insist on wearing rain boots to the pool this summer. He's not screaming, crying, or having a temper tantrum, is he? No? Then it's all good.

Parenthood is about learning to let go and realize what our children have know all along: rain boots aren't just for rainy days.

Story Behind the Picture: Run Like a Girl

It was the first day of my junior year in high school. The physics lab broiled in the heat of the early September sun. I looked around at my classmates (mostly seniors), and realized there was only one other person wearing a skirt in the room beside myself.

Mr. C began his “Welcome to AP Physics” speech with all the enthusiasm of someone whose spare time was filled with accelerometers, calculators, and equations. As I shifted my weight on the uncomfortable yellow lab stool, I head him pause. He looked directly at me, and then to the one other person wearing a skirt in the room, and uttered the following:

“You might as well prepare yourselves: girls traditionally do not do well in this class.”

What I wanted to do was get up off the uncomfortable yellow lab stool, take my newly sharped pencil, and stab it in his neck. What I did do was sit perfectly still, my hands clasped in angelic fashion atop my text book, and gaze back at him with my most winning smile (which, I’m certain, was tinged with discernible malice). The validation to the pulse pounding in my ears and adrenaline flowing in my veins was my lab partner’s barely audible comment of “oh, no he just didn’t...” I’m not sure if he was horrified by Mr. C’s statement, or if he was just concerned I might go on a sharpened-pencil-stabbing spree right there in the lab.

He needn’t have worried. I had no intention of murdering Mr. C. It was far more enjoyable to watch his face each time he handed me my test results. For one year I enjoyed the delicious satisfaction of earning one of the highest grades. Of the entire class. Including the boys.

Fast-forward ten years to the soccer fields where my husband and I coached our team of middle-school girls. “Time for push-ups!” he called, “and just so you know, there are no GIRLY push-ups allowed!”

Imagine, if you will, the sound of 15 girls (and one of their coaches) gasping at the sound of the word “girly” being used as a euphemism for “weak.”

I don’t think I need to tell you what happened next. As he apologized to the girls (many of whom were giving him looks that echoed my own pencil-in-the-jugular expression) for his poor choice of words, I realized sexist comments should always be harnessed for the opportunity-providing-pieces-of-nonsense that they are. Never ignore them. Never pretend they don’t exist, only to seep into the cracks of your psyche when you least expect them. Instead, hear them: hear them for the insanity that they are. Turn it around on them. Relish the look on their faces when you answer every test question correctly. Enjoy the feeling as you complete 30 “girly” push-ups...you know, the kind where your legs are perfectly straight and your knees never touch the ground? Those are the only kind of girly push-ups I know how to do.

Story Behind the Picture: Different is Beautiful

As a child, I was never the one who fit in seamlessly with my surroundings, but it never mattered to me. My parents never pressured me to play the same sports as the popular girls, to wear lipstick in high school, to choose a major in college that would make me money (admittedly, my father did try to suggest an MBA, but he dropped that suggestion rather quickly after I gave him one of my infamous dirty looks). They loved me even if I did read the Encyclopedia for fun.

My oldest son is a little different than most. He's been given incredible gifts: he can play music by ear, he can read chapter books, he can compute simple algebra equations. He is only five years old.

Along with his talents, his incredible enthusiasm, and his beautiful singing voice comes a bit of social awkwardness, sensitivity to sound and surroundings, and difficulty making friends his own age. Many terms have come our way in the past few months: Aspergers, Autism, and the like. It doesn't matter to us what label he receives: we will make sure he knows that being different is a beautiful thing.

Story Behind the Picture: Good or Bad?

I love the Wizard of Oz. I love the Wizard of Oz, even though I once had nightmares about a witch's legs shriveling up under a house, and sparkling ruby slippers that were coming to get me.

When I saw these shoes on the feet of my two-year-old niece, I began thinking of my favorite phrases from the movie. If you knew my two-year-old niece, saw her impish smile and clever eyes, ran after her as she tried to repeatedly dart into oncoming traffic, or watched her scale furniture of frightening heights in order to retrieve a cookie from the counter, you would know why I chose this particular quote.

Sometimes the only story I have to tell is the one about the sunny day, the Scrabble letters, and my niece's little ruby slippers. So, I ask you all: are you a good witch, or a bad witch?

Story Behind the Picture: A Girl's Best Friend

I'm not sure where Marilyn Monroe got the notion, but diamonds are not my best friend. I don't hate them, mind you, but I've never judged the depth and the breadth of love based upon their size. The diamond my grandfather bought for my grandmother? Minuscule. The number of second and third construction shifts he worked in order to propose to her with a ring? Epic.

My own husband popped the question with a 10-cent ring from a vending machine. He later upgraded to a lovely diamond, but truly, I would have been happy to wear the original.

Give me a promise made of stronger stuff than pressurized carbon, and you can keep the rest.

I will, however, take a stack of good books and a fabulous pair of heels (perhaps Marilyn really felt the same way, but it would have made for a rather unwieldy song title). I leave you with "A Girl's Best Friend," as seen through my eyes...

Story Behind the Picture: The Two of Us

Most little girls dream of walking down the aisle on their wedding day, and dancing in high-heeled white satin shoes as the sun sets and the band plays music and their new partner amazes everyone with his fantastic waltzing ability. Or at least that's what we're told to believe (I, for one, did not see any fabulous waltzing from my husband at our wedding reception). The beauty of getting older is realizing that one girl's pair of heels is simply another's roller skates. And who says it can't be two girls standing at the end of that aisle together?

In my career as a wedding-attendee, I've worn every color of taffeta, carried every form of bouquet, and danced to every Village People song around. I've caught flowers (and promptly thrown them at the next unsuspecting girl), dried my eyes, made toasts, and carried one particular friend over huge drifts of snow so we could fit her and all her dress into the car during an epic East Coast storm. That said, I have never been to a wedding where both the brides wore skates.

It wasn't traditional. It wasn't expected. It wasn't even legal (Maryland is still a little behind the evolution curve in these matters). It was, however, the most joyous, crazy, wonderful, loving, and funny union I've ever had the privilege of witnessing. When we formed a circle at the end, so the brides could skate past and high-five everyone at the reception, I cried like the sentimental fool that I am. We should all be so lucky to live our lives like that wedding day: have fun, break the right rules, and thank your friends.

Story Behind the Picture: Wedding Shoes

This weekend I had the incredible honor of attending my dear friend Keith’s wedding: he and his bride Sarah kindly invited my whole family to the beautiful event (even the boys, who miraculously behaved like cherubs ...I’m wondering if my father bribed them with the promise of new cars on their 16th birthdays). In case it isn’t obvious from the photograph, Keith and his family are Scottish - his father, John, agreed to pose proudly with his son for my photograph. Afterwards, he looked down and noticed the way Keith had tied the laces of his shoes.

Keith’s dad: “You’ve tied them wrong!”
Keith: “I’ve done no such thing!”
Keith’s dad: “Yes y’have! They should be tied to the side, like mine, not in the front! I can’t take ye anywhere, can I?”

This, of course, is banter I’ve been privy too for the eleven years that I’ve known Keith. We met in graduate school at a Caleigh dance where there were quite a few inebriated folks performing what was meant to be the “Highland Fling.” My rendition was probably more “fling” and less “Highland,” but Keith and his friends took pity on the loud American who was, at the very least, putting forth a good effort. Luck was very much on our side when we ended sitting inches from one another for the next year: I in stroke seat and he in the coxswain’s “throne” of several extremely fast eights. Keith was - and is - the best coxswain I’ve ever had the privilege of rowing with. All jokes aside about short, bossy people with loud voices, having Keith in that seat was tantamount to walking in a bad neighborhood with a pit bull: no one stood a chance against us. Better yet, he never yelled at us, he yelled for us, a difference that I’m convinced is instinctive and cannot be taught. My husband (also a rower) always laughs when I insist it’s just as physically demanding to cox as to row a race, but I don’t think he’s ever seen someone invest themselves the way Keith did. Even in practice, he brought legendary intensity: no matter the weather (usually rain) or the exhaustion level (usually high), he found our speed for us.

Keith is the same in friendship as he is in coxing - unwavering, intense, complete. He actually helped pick out the shoes I wore on my first date with my husband:

Me: "Which ones should I wear?"
Keith: “That pair says ‘take me seriously, I’m highly intellectual.’”
Me: “And these?”
Keith: “They say ‘I’m a complete tart and I’m here for a good time.’”

(And no, I’ll never tell which ones I chose).

Keith has steered me into more blade clashes than any other cox (we never lost a single one), has baby-sat my children (although he looked very panicked as I left the house), and has climbed atop rickety scaffolding to paint our hallway (because we finally had to put him to work during a visit where he sat on our couch for over a week). I look forward to spending decades more with Keith and Sarah, and sharing this photograph - and my memories - with their children.